THE RISING OF TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES IN AND AROUND CHINA

tech companies of China

In this week’s blog post am going to be talking about the tech companies of China. We all know about the tech companies outside of China, like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, but I think its time to have a look at the rising stars of China, and what it could mean for companies outside of China that are doing business in China.

The search engine of China

Well, there is not that much to compare between Baidu and Google, they both serve the same purpose, which is to deliver content to the browser the user is looking for. Baidu does take the top spot for market share in China, unlike Google, as Google is mostly just available in Hong Kong now. Citizens in mainland could still access it if using a VPN, but even they are slowly been blocked.

I do feel if Google had unrestricted access to the mainland it would cause trouble for Baidu. Google has a much wider reach resource-wise than Baidu. Baidu is of course heavily censored as well. Not every result you find on Google can be found on Baidu, especially if it is negative towards China. For example, the Tiananmen Square massacre, it’s been erased from history in China.

The Amazon of China

Alibaba is a major player when it comes to e-commerce. With all the tech companies of China, Alibaba is the best. Their revenue was more than Amazon and eBay put together. That in itself says enough on how big it is. Alibaba was founded by Jack Ma and 17 others, it is something that has grown beyond what they have hoped for.

It has some other websites in the portfolio, one would be Aliexpress, Taobao, and Tmall. Alibaba is a business-to-business trading platform(B2B), which nearly all purchases are done through Alibaba platform. The upside to Alibaba is that you don’t need to be a business in China to use it. It’s open to all business around the world to sell their products.

So what if you are not a business but still want to buy products from China? Well, that’s when Aliexpress comes into play, this is a business to consumer platform(B2C). Millions of products for you to browse, from clothes, smartphones, kitchen wear, anything and everything you can think of all in place. The prices can be good for some products and sometimes cost a bit more than it normally would, this can be due to a number of reasons, one of the main ones is the cost of shipping, that can play a big part in the cost of some products.

About Shipping

Some will have the price and the price of the shipping, some offer free shipping but its recommended to buy enough to cover the shipping cost of the seller, ideally, the products you buy should be at least greater than €5, as you will see products cheaper than that, but that seller still has shipping costs to pay, in most cases the shipping is added in on the price, which is why some prices can be high but also include free shipping, which is really not. The reason if you see a product cheap, or less than €5 is to get you to buy more than just one of them, so support the seller and buy a few extra to cover costs on their side.

Taobao and Tmall is the Chinese version of Aliexpress. Of course, there has to be a version for China, it is a B2C platform, and I often found some products a lot better priced on Taobao and Tmall than on Aliexpress, but the sellers only ship within China.

Alibaba has grown so much since it first started, from e-commerce, cloud storage, and now having it own Alipay, which is its own version PayPal, or Google Wallet.

The Facebook of China

Sino Weibo is the Facebook of China, or sometimes the twitter of China. It has a large market share with over 300 million monthly users, and it’s going every day. There are more active users than on Twitter and on average around 100 million messages posted each day.

The downside of Weibo is that it is heavily censored, and many posts get removed quickly if it is usually negative about the government. It’s not the same freedom as with Twitter and Facebook. One good thing what China policy is that the social websites like Sino Weibo, the user must register with their real name. There are plus sides and downsides, the downside is that you will be found a lot quicker if you post something they don’t agree with. The plus side is the same as the downside, sometimes people take advantage of been hidden online and being able to say things that they really shouldn’t to other people, cyberbullying is a big problem and not just in China, but everywhere, this is one step closer to trying to stop those that get away with it.

Apple near the end of its days in China?

Well with tech companies of China, Apple is a big brand in China, people will spend a month’s worth of wages or more just to buy one. All good things come to an end, so they say, and Apple market share in China is dropping. That can be seen when the iPhone X came out, the turn out was very bad. Chinese brand phones are taking over the market, pushing Apple out, One of those tech companies of China is Xiaomi, which offers top smartphones that match the iPhones for half the price, and more companies in China are doing the same. I for one got a Xiaomi smartphone, Redmi 4X, 32GB Memory, and 3GB Ram, it runs great, great camera front and back. Not only do they sell smartphones that are better than apple in every way, but Smart TVs with a price you can’t beat.

The price of iPhones will affect Apple sales in China, as more people see better phones for a better price, it’s only a matter of time before Apple will lose its market in China. Xiaomi market is mostly China only, but you can find their products on other websites which allow you to buy from them. It’s only a matter of time before Xiaomi starts shipping outside of China, then other brands will get affected.

So, after looking over some of the main tech companies of China, it is safe to say that the future is bright for most of them, and will continue to grow and expand more across China and to foreign countries as well in the years to come.